Saturday, January 29, 2011

Most of you know that over the last year I have had a few ER visits with chest pain. I have had an endoscopy and some homeopathic tests and all have come back saying my body was great and that it must be anxiety.

On Wednesday, I woke up and my chest once again starting tightening up. I called John to give him a heads up but I was scheduled to meet with a trainer at the gym that morning so I wanted to push through - I mean it was suppose to be anxiety. So I took the boys to the child care area and went to sit down for a minute - the pain was getting worse. And then a wash of awful awful pain came over me and I began throwing up. So after a few minutes I called John to leave work and come get us. He brought me straight to the ER and as usual they began a cardiac workup - and nothing. But this time the ER doc said he want to poke around and see where the pain was worst. I had told him we had been through this several times the last year to no avail. So when he poked around my gallbladder I begin to cry hard - awful pain. So he sent me for an ultrasound and xrays and confirmed I had gallstones and in his words "a very very sick gallbladder, and it needed to come out today." So they prepped me for surgery and that night I had it removed.

The Surgeon came in to talk about the risk and one worse case scenario was that one of the stones had escaped my gall bladder and was causing blockage in my common bile duct. He said this could be lethal if not caught quickly. He said if that were so he would have to get a GI doc to come in a remove it because he couldn't. So the worst case scenario did happen but they could not get a GI doc in the first surgery so they had to keep me in the hospital and put me back under the next day - Thursday to take care of the blockage.

I had hoped that I would go home last night but we had a hard time getting my pain managed off of the pain pump so it is looking like this morning. My mom flew out here as soon as she heard and she will be here to help me through the recovery. John has to fly to Atlanta Sunday through Tuesday as long as I am doing well he NEEDS to make this trip. So please pray for easy recovery and for us to all be ok while John is away. Thanks again for your prayers.

I can not tell you how relieved I am that after a year of these pains I finally know it was not just anxiety or in my head. This pain and un-comfort I feel now is so worth it knowing I won't have to have another episode of worse than labor pain :)

Oh my goodness- my dad just had the same thing happen and a similar complication- recovery took a while- take it slow. Sounds like you have a good doctor- thank goodness he found out the REAL pain culprit!